(Newser)
–
The case is a little murky, but a prominent Maryland businessman is under arrest almost a year after he emailed his nanny/housekeeper a photo of her 11-year-old daughter in underwear changing into a shirt. The mom reported the photo to Robert Shapiro's wife, reports WJLA, and the couple began divorce proceedings after Shapiro admitted he put a tiny camera in a bathroom in the couple's $800,000 house. But apparently no charges came of the creepy photo until December, when the mom watched a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode about sexual abuse with her now 12-year-old daughter. When she asked her daughter if anyone had ever touched her inappropriately, the girl replied, "Rob did it." Now the mortgage banker, athletic coach, and former PTA member is facing charges of child sex abuse.

The charging documents allege that Shapiro on at least one occasion took the girl alone to a basement bedroom to place sensors and a nerve stimulator on her chest, hips, and buttocks, and that he took photos of the unclothed girl, claiming he "wanted to remember where he kept the [sensor] tabs." While the father of two young kids wasn't reached for comment yesterday, his attorney told WJLA that Shapiro "vehemently denies the allegation." Meanwhile, the parents of a 17-year-old neighbor who claimed in September that Shapiro photographed and molested her earlier that year hope the case, dropped due to lack of evidence, will be reexamined. "Everybody kind of thought he was weird but had no idea that he would be a child predator," says another neighbor, adding that "this is a man that put himself out there in positions to be around children." (Late last year, USA Swimming fell under the spotlight for what has been called rampant sex abuse.)

What if the little girl is just suffering from the same issue that Brian Williams.

obamaholderbutbuds

Feb 12, 2015 9:33 AM CST

Stabler would have kicked his ass!

rhinojake

Feb 12, 2015 9:26 AM CST

Perhaps I'm missing something but why should it take a tv show to get the victim's mom of her butt to report the creepy photo, which should have immediately "rung a bell", and the alleged molestation to the police?? That said, I know an individual who was wrongly accused by the "whacked out" mom of one his son's friends of molesting her son during a sleepover which had occurred over a year before. This woman was known to hate men... Soon after this mom made the allegation to the police, police showed up at his son's school taking his son into protective custody, in front of his classmates, to ask, along with a Children Services rep, him if he's ever been molested by the dad. A lot of people "stepped up", including, off the record, the school principal to tell police and Child Services, in defense of the dad, the mom's penchant for lying and the kid being the school's troublemaker and to attest to his character. The dad was never questioned by police, which frightened him. to some degree. As it turned out, the mom intentionally had rented a movie about an individual who had long repressed memories about being molested when she, the character, was young. She then planted the suggestion in her highly impressionable suggestable son's head that he'd been molested.by this father. No charges, and rightly so, were ever filed as it was determined it was a made up story. While it this incident still riles the dad, the positive was that his son disassociated himself from the lying kid. Her having filed a false police report was never pressed. .... Unfortunately, the mom, who lived on the public dole, didn't have a penny to her name so suing her would be useless, though I urged him to do so to make a point. My apologies for taking up ""space" here......... .